CVE-2003-0044 Jakarta Tomcat cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability

What is CVE-2003-0044?

CVE-2003-0044 is a medium-severity cross-site scripting vulnerability in Apache Tomcat, published on 29 Jan 2003. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

Official description

Multiple cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities in the (1) examples and (2) ROOT web applications for Jakarta Tomcat 3.x through 3.3.1a allow remote attackers to insert arbitrary web script or HTML.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2003-0044?

2 open source packages ship an affected version, including org.apache.tomcat:tomcat. It affects 1 product.

Products include Apache Tomcat.

How do I fix CVE-2003-0044?

Upgrade org.apache.tomcat:tomcat to 3.3.2 or later.

Escape output for the context it lands in and set a strict Content Security Policy. Upgrading the affected component is the real fix. More about Cross-site scripting.

Is CVE-2003-0044 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2003-0044 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Apache Tomcat

• CVE-2025-24813 Apache Tomcat Path Equivalence Exploited Critical 10.0
• CVE-2016-8735 Apache Tomcat Remote Code Execution Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2017-12617 Apache Tomcat Remote Code Execution Exploited High 8.1
• CVE-2017-12615 Apache Tomcat on Windows Remote Code Execution Exploited High 8.1
• CVE-2026-34486 Apache Tomcat Missing Encryption of Sensitive Data Exploited High 7.5

All Apache Tomcat vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as GHSA-5hgm-qm5m-5vmw.